The Rise of Solo
by Raynebow of the Rising Sun
Summary: Set 5 years after The Rise of Skywalker, Rey nears the end of the epic 5 year quest she's been on to try to discover the secrets behind the return of Palpatine so that she can bring back her long lost love and dyad-mate, Ben Solo... with the galaxy left in chaos after the fall of the First Order, everyone could use another hero, especially Rey.
1. Chapter 1

Another Dead End, Rey thought dejectedly as she flipped through the blank pages of a brittle old flesh bound tome with a Sith symbol on it's cover. Who in their right mind, besides Maz Kanata, would keep a blank Sith journal inside a locked chest, buried under a ton of other chests in a store room below an ancient cantina? With a growl of frustration she lobbed the blank book across the room. Slamming into the stone wall, it came apart, sending pages flying.

Halfway to the door she spied an errant page stuck against the thin light bar that ran at just above eye level around the entire room, she froze in her tracks as bewilderment crossed her sweaty, dusty features. A thin line of text, nearly identical in size to the light bar, had become visible across the surface of the blank page. Gently, she unstuck the page and looked at it closely even as the text faded away before her eyes. A sense of giddiness almost too strong to contain passed through her and she set about gathering the loose pages. Stuffing the creamy pages haphazardly into the broken binding of the book she had thrown, she nearly ran back to the Falcon in her excitement and eagerness to see what secrets the not-so-blank pages contained.

"Chewie!" she bellowed toward the cockpit as she rushed up the ramp. "I think I might have found something!"

Popping his head up from the engineering maintenance compartment in the main cabin, Chewbacca let out a soft purrowl that in his language meant approximately, "Please say you found a new compressor."

Rey rolled her eyes and held up the messily reassembled book she had found. "It's a secret Sith journal of some kind!" she exclaimed. "The pages all appear blank, but they aren't!"

Doubtfully, Chewbacca growled something that approximated the basic equivalent of "Calm down."

"No! Really! look!" Rey said, pulling a random page from the binding and rushing over to show it to the giant russet Wookkiee. "See? It looks blank!"

Glancing between the page and Rey, Chewbacca let out a very soft purr-like sound.

Encouraged, Rey squatted down and picked up Chewbacca's work light, holding it behind the page. "Now watch this." She said as nothing happened. "Any moment now..." she insisted as the seconds ticked by and nothing happened.

Reaching out with a gentle hand Chewbacca rubbed Rey's shoulder as he purrowled an apologetic phrase in his own language.

"I don't understand." Rey said after a moment. "It worked in the cellar. A page got stuck against the light strip and everywhere the light touched it, it showed writing."

Chewbacca made a low, mournful sound then pulled himself up out of the compartment, leaving his long legs dangling inside he pulled his little friend into a bone popping hug.

"Chewie," Rey wheezed, "I can't breathe!"

Releasing her the big furry fellow also let loose with a series of purrs, growls, barks and grunts that roughly translated to, "He's gone. You've done your best. Nobody could ask for more than you've already done. Maybe it's time to give up."

For a moment Rey's shoulders sagged and her eyes went dull and lifeless but then she pulled herself together.

"No!" she said firmly. "I haven't come this far to quit now. I didn't make the trip to Exogul five times, wade through thousands of dead bodies, traipse back and forth across the galaxy for five years to give up just because I'm having trouble with some old book that guards it's secrets well!"

With a shrug and a quiet sound of acquiescence Chewbacca slipped back down into the sub-floor compartment to continue his never ending mission to keep the Falcon operational.

Night was falling on Takadona before Chewbacca managed to get the old ship flight-worthy. Rey sat sullenly in the co-pilot's seat as Chewie guided the old freighter through the atmosphere and into open space. As the elongated star-lines of hyperspace appeared outside the cockpit's viewing glass Rey fiddled with the old book, nonsensically trying to put the pages in order despite the complete lack of markings on any of them. Her distant expression sharpened as an idea struck her and she held up a page to the bright blue and white swirl of hyperspace outside the view-port.

Almost as if by magic symbols started to strobe in and out of the visible spectrum. It took her only seconds to realize the key to making the writing appear. "Chewie!" She suddenly shouted, causing the big being to jump nearly out of his fur. "Look!"

Chewbacca leaned over to look as the symbols flashed on and off the page, upon seeing them he let out a bark of surprise.

"I think it's the white light..." she said excitedly. "See how it keeps flashing with the different hues of light from the hyperspace tunnel?"

Chewbacca growled a response, sounding as excited as a quarter millennia old Wookkiee could manage.

"Right, your work-light was blue! That has to be it! I need a strong white light!" She said, jumping out of her seat to go in search of one.

Returning to her seat with a bright white glow rod in hand, Rey started illuminating the pages one by one, hoping for drawings or notes in the margins that she could decipher amongst the jagged, inelegant markings of the Sith language.

She diligently illuminated every page, holding out hope til the bitter end, but was unable to find one discernible marking to give her a clue about the contents of the journal. Just as she closed the book with a disgruntled sigh Chewbacca reached out and pulled the lever to drop them out of hyperspace.

Rey made a bee-line straight to C3PO as soon as the Falcon touched down on the landing pad at Forward Base Alpha, the new home of the Resistance's military arm, where Finn, Poe and Rose all spent most of their time in the continued fight against the remnants of the First Order and the many unaffiliated warlords that still battled for dominance over the governance of the Galaxy. "Threepio, I need you!" she said as she drew near the golden droid. "I need you to read every page of this journal, translate them and compile them into a file in the correct order in your memory bank."

"Certainly!" the droid said cheerfully. "I'm always happy to help with translations - in fact, it's my primary function!"

"Good." Rey said, pulling out a blank page and handing it to C3PO. "Can you see what's written here?"

C3PO looked at the page for a long moment before answering with much confusion in his voice, "This page appears to be blank."

"Alright then, come with me." she said as she brushed past him and made her way into the heavily camouflaged command center.

Inside, Rey commandeered a datapad from a passing Rebel fighter with a muttered promise to return it quickly. Tapping the screen several times as she walked toward the officer's mess hall buried deep inside the compound. After a few minutes she let out a whoop as the screen turned into a bright white rectangle in her hands. Sitting down at an empty table in the otherwise empty room, Rey laid a page atop the glowing datapad. "What do you see now?" she asked as she slid the datapad toward C3PO./p

The golden droid looked at the page, did a double take then looked at Rey. "You can't be serious!"

"I'm sorry, but I am." Rey said firmly. "I need you to organize and translate the whole book and save it to a file that Babu Frik can extract intact."

"But...But..." The droid stammered impotently. "You promised to never make me translate Sith again!"

"I know I did, Threepio, but this is very important!" she said apologetically.

"Is it about Master Ben?" C3PO asked with a tinge of sadness in his mechanical voice.

"I believe it is." Rey said coaxingly. "I can feel that this book holds the key to bringing him back. I know it does. I just need to be able to read it."

C3PO stared at her for a long moment then said in his haughtiest tone, "Very well then, I suppose one more memory wipe wont cause me any lasting damage."

Rey was so happy with his capitulation that she almost hugged him but stopped herself short just in time as C3PO stepped back to avoid the embrace. "I must find R2 and have him update his back ups of my memory."

Muttering to himself about being too kind, C3PO shuffled out of the mess as Rey smiled after him.

The smile dissolved from her features as a throbbing hum in the Force that surrounded her. It wasn't the first time, nor she suspected would it be the last time, she'd felt his presence since he had faded away that long ago day on Exogul. She wasn't precisely sure how she even knew it was him. But she knew it was. A feeling like peace washed over her. She could almost feel his hand brush against the nape of her neck, the warmth of his breath upon her face, the light touch of his lips against hers. More than the physical sensations she could feel his loneliness, his need to be near her.

The way his Force presence felt like an almost overly warm blanket of comfort brought tears to her eyes. In spite of his death, Ben Solo had never left her side for long. He had never given up on her, even when she'd begged him to. Often, at night, she would lie awake, haunted by both his memory and his presence, and beg him to let go of the living world - to surrender to the Force and truly become one with it. But in all of the years between his death and now, he hadn't. He had chosen to remain in some strange limbo, not exactly a part of the Force, but somehow also metaphysically manifested by it.

She sometimes wondered where he went when he wasn't haunting her... but she never dared to ask, she was too afraid he would take it as her not wanting him around, or possibly as her not wanting him to go wherever he went. Wherever it was she hoped it was somewhere he wanted to be. Somewhere nice. Somewhere where he didn't feel so desperately lonely.

She wasn't sure how she knew it, but she knew that he intended to hang around for as long as she lived... that he refused to move on without her. The thought both tortured and delighted her. She hated that he wasn't at peace, but at the same time she loved that he cared so much about her that he wouldn't ever leave her behind, not even in death.

It hadn't taken her long after the Battle of Exogul to decide that, no matter the cost, she was going to find out how Palpatine had come back to life, and even if it cost her the rest of her soul and her very life, she was going to use that knowledge to bring Ben back from the dead.

"Something's different now," she said quietly, for him alone to hear. "I can feel it. That book is the key to bringing you back to me, I know it is."

A feeling like a smile washed over her and she could almost hear his voice in her mind, telling her that it didn't matter, because he was already with her. "It matters to me. You're not the only one who's lonely, Ben." She whispered into the empty room. "You're not the only one who's dead but still hanging around, either... I just haven't faded away, yet."

The smiley feeling changed to one of intense sadness and gooseflesh prickled Rey's skin as an unnatural cool breeze brushed up her arm to caress the scar on her bicep. "If this book doesn't have the information I need I'll find another way to bring you back, if there isn't a way, I'll invent one." she vowed. "I refuse to spend the rest of my life without you by my side. You've no idea how many times I've wanted to just turn my saber around and ignite it. Anything to be with you. Through all my years on Jakku, being hungry and lonely and desperate - I didn't even know an emptiness this profound could exist. I never knew what loneliness was until you died."

"Rey?" Rose's voice called out as the smaller woman stepped tentatively into the room. "Are you - Oh! there you are." Rose smiled and walked over in her bouncy gate. "How did it go? Did you find anything on this trip?"

Rey looked at Rose through still misty eyes then blinked away the moisture there. "I don't know, yet, but I think so." She answered, standing up and showing the book of empty pages to Rose. "This book has a Sith symbol on the cover, and all of the pages appear blank until you view them with a strong white light behind them. See here?" she picked up the datapad and demonstrated her findings.

"Oh! Luma-ink!" Rose said with a delighted tilt to her lips. "I've heard of it, but never seen it before! My dad used to tell Paige and me stories about how the old Republic spies used to use it to send secret messages back and forth!"

"Spies?" Rey asked, thoroughly intrigued.

"Oh! Yes! My dad was one of those guys who spent all his free time watching old infotainment holos about spies and pirates and smugglers... anything that was full of adventure!" Rose stroked the illuminated page gently then her joy seemed to deflate. "I miss them. My family. Paige, dad, mom..."

Moved by Rose's sadness, Rey embraced her friend saying, "I know exactly how you feel."

Rose nodded into Rey's shoulder then sniffed and pulled away. "Poe sent me to find you. Bressacca's gang moved into the Omnisa system last night and they're threatening to lay waste to all forty planets unless we supply them with a hundred capitol ships and the men to crew them."

Rey rolled her eyes and sighed. Another overly ambitious warlord, another distraction from her quest. "Let me guess... Poe wants me to persuade Bressacca to leave peacefully and rethink her life?"

Rose smiled, "Of course."


	2. Chapter 2

Finn had finally broken down and confessed to Rey, just after she had returned from her spiritual sojourn on Tatooine, that he had discovered that he could feel and sometimes use the Force. With her frequent trips all over the galaxy in search of clues to the mystery behind Palpatine's return, Rey didn't have much time to teach Finn anything more than the basics. Thankfully he turned out to be a fast learner and an eager student who was perfectly capable of learning things on his own in the infrequent bits of spare time he managed while still actively co-leading the Resistance with Poe. Though she barely considered herself to be a Jedi knight Rey did her best to teach Finn everything she knew and every new thing she learned... every chance she got.

Rey spied Finn's new protege as she approached him and Poe. Guyan had come to the Resistance three years ago after stealing a ship from one of the various parking areas near the Canto Bight racetrack where he'd spent his life caring for the fathiers that brought his and their owners big creds every time they left the starting gate. She gave the boy a quick smile and then turned her attention to Finn.

"You look well!" she said, hugging her friend.

"You look..." Finn paused, his brow knitting. "Disheveled. I take it your mission was a success?"

"We'll see! I have to wait to find out, I need a full translation of the Sith journal I found on this trip." She replied with a voice full of optimism.

"Good to hear," Poe cut in as he stepped up for a brief hug. "Now, about this Bressacca character... it turns out she's a Silliphis, will that be a problem?"

"A what now?" Rey asked, unfamiliar with that species.

"A Silliphis... they're like... if you mixed an Ewok and a Trandoshan." Poe said, guiding her over to a computer display. "From all accounts they're usually very peaceful but occasionally an Alpha Queen comes along and well... Bressacca."

A strange looking fur tufted lizard creature appeared on the display and Rey made a face like someone seeing something both weird and fascinating for the first time. "I don't know if I'll be able to influence her or not..." Rey mused as she read the information that accompanied the image on the display screen. "I've never heard of Silliphis before. Maybe I should take Lando with me - he seems to have a silvered tongue for negotiations."

Poe nodded, "Good idea, he could use some time off this base, he's acting... like... not Lando."

"We'll leave as soon as he's ready." She promised as she headed off to her own quarters to get cleaned up and changed on her way to finding Lando.

"Threepio," Rey said, finding the golden droid partially blocking the hallway near Lando's quarters - complaining to his shorter and rounder counterpart, R2D2, about his upcoming memory wipe. "Is Lando in his room?"

"I haven't the foggiest, he's been a rare one to spot for a few days now." C3PO responded promptly.

"Ok, thanks. Have you translated that journal yet?"

Coolly and a little too stiffly, he replied, "I have completed the translation, but I'm afraid Babu Frik isn't here to extract it."

Rey frowned. "He's not here? Where is he?"

"He and Zorii Bliss have gone on an excursion within Hutt controlled space." C3PO replied. "As I understand it Chula the Hutt has declared himself Huutnach of the entire outer rim between Corosa Minor and Nal Fassa Major."

Rey frowned. "When did that happen? How long have they been gone?"

R2 beeped and whirred a response.

Rey sighed heavily, "Just get him to extract it as soon as he gets back, please, I need to know what's in that journal."

Lando, it turned out, was indeed in his quarters - sipping on a tumbler of iced whiskey and staring off into a corner. When he finally looked at her the old scoundrel gave her a thin smile and said, "Hey, kid."

"General," Rey said as she pulled the glass from his hand and sat it down on a table next to his chair. "We have a mission. You need to get ready to go save a few hundred billion sentients from oppression or worse!"

"A mission?" Lando repeated as if he'd never heard of such a thing.

Nodding, she said firmly, "You and I are going to go talk to Bressacca and see if we can persuade her to rethink her hostile take over of the Omnisa System."

"What do you need me for? You're a Skywalker now, just do your Jedi thing." Lando said, picking his glass up from the table where Rey had set it and draining it's contents.

"Well..." Rey drawled, "The thing is - I don't know if my 'Jedi thing' will work on her - she's a type of sentient I've never heard of before.."

Showing a bit of his old self finally, Lando's eyes brightened. "What species is she?"

"A Silliphis."

"Really?" He sounded downright intrigued now. "I've never met one of those, but I've heard some things about 'em."

"She's apparently something called an 'Alpha Queen' - I don't know what that means but it seems to set her apart from most of her kind."

"An Alpha Queen? That sounds interesting." Lando grinned his most roguish grin and jumped up from his seat. "Give me twenty minutes!"

Two hours later Lando swept into the Millennium Falcon looking almost more impressive than an Ouishi bird with it's prismatic feathers pulsating strobes of brilliant colors in nearly every spectrum of light. He wore a pair of shiny knee high boots in deepest black, the shiniest pair of royal blue trousers she had never imagined might actually exist in the entire galaxy, a shirt made of some shimmery golden material that reflected light in an almost glitter like fashion, a formal jacket in scarlet with white trim and a knee length cape that was black shimmer-silk lined in the most purple purple that has ever purpled.

With all the confidence of a man in his prime Lando strode confidently into the cockpit and sat down in the pilot's seat. As he brushed past her, Rey was so overwhelmed by his cologne that for a moment all she could do was stare after him with her mouth agape and her eyes as wide open as they could possibly be.

When she finally recovered herself she plopped down in the co-pilots chair and asked sourly, "Did you dig those clothes out of the south end of a rotting corpse?"

Lando laughed briefly before his smile melted away as he ran a preflight check. "You got a lot to learn, kid." He told her soberly while he lifted the Falcon off the ground.

"If that smell gets stuck in that seat - you're replacing it." She shot back.

"Always dress to impress your hosts and your guests," he said in melodic fashion - as if reciting poetry. "Silliphis love bright shiny things the way I love beautiful cityscapes and fast ships."

She wrinkled her nose at him. "Let me guess, they also like stinky things?"

"To the Alpha Queen, the smell of Yeekitashi musk is as alluring as the aroma of a sumptuous banquet combined with the pheromones of a yeekibull during mating season. I'll have her eating out of the palm of my hand in no time." He winked salaciously and jumped to light-speed.


	3. Chapter 3

A child's scream jerked him from the most beautiful dream in which Rey had smiled at him and then kissed him. Sitting bolt upright, Ben took in his surroundings. He was sitting on the ground in the garden in front of his childhood home on Chandrilla. His perusal of the scene was cut short as his eyes landed upon a familiar scene.

Blinking disbelievingly, Ben hauled himself to his feet and drew closer to the spot where he saw and heard the memory of the last moments he ever got to spend with his family at their home.

"No! No, please!" Tears spilled down his round, youthful cheeks as he clung to Leia's hand. "I don't want to go! I don't want to be a Jedi, why can't I just stay with you!"

Han stepped forward and knelt before his ten year old son. "Hey, kiddo, you know we want that too, but you are a Jedi. It's your destiny to be greater than any of us. We don't have what it takes to help you." Brushing a soft black lock of hair from his son's forehead, Han smiled sadly. "Luke can help you. He can teach you things that your mother and I can't."

"But I don't want that! I don't want to be a Jedi!" Ben insisted almost desperately. "I just want to be a pilot, and fly around the galaxy in the Falcon with you and uncle Chewie!"

"I know kid." Han said earnestly. "My life seems pretty great to a ten year old, but the truth is, it isn't the kind of life I want for you. You deserve better." Han cupped his son's cheek gently. "I'm just a kid from the sewers of Correlia who had to pick his own last name. But not you. You're the son of a real live Princess and the last Prince of Alderaan... you deserve better than the life I've had. The Force saw fit to make you a Jedi. It wants you to grow up to be a guardian of peace of hope in the galaxy. You can't learn that from us. Only Luke can teach you that."

"Your parents feared you." Snoke's voice rang clearly in his mind, causing Ben to jerk fully around where a new scene greated his eyes, "That is why they sent you away."

He could see himself as a teenager, carefully tightening a tiny screw into a circuit board no bigger than the tip of his thumb with a driver so tiny he hadn't even been able to see the screw around the tips of his fingers. "They wanted to help me become a Jedi." He said stubbornly. "So I could have better than them."

"Better than them?" Snoke laughed into his mind. "What could you possibly want that they - two of the wealthiest and most famous and powerful people in the galaxy - couldn't give you?"

Setting the circuit board down carefully amongst the bits and bobs of machinery that would soon be his first lightsaber, Ben looked up abruptly from his task with a glare distorting his young features. "Nothing." He spat bitterly.

Luke's voice cut through his mind and Ben turned away from the scowl on his younger self's face,"Life isn't always about what you have, or what you can get." Luke said slowly. "It's about what you can do to improve the lives of those around you."

Now he saw himself, his new lightsaber in hand as he enthusiastically swung it's humming blue blade at a rather bored looking Luke Skywalker. Continuing his lesson, Luke went on, "The Force is an energy given off by all living things, and that energy is shaped by the feelings of the beings that feed it. When I was your age I didn't even know I had the Force, or even what it was, but I always felt a sense of unhappiness, like a blanket of darkness wrapped around everyone and everything I encountered. I was so used to feeling it that it felt like a natural part of life. It wasn't until the fall of Palpatine that I started to feel that sensation being replaced by that calm feeling of peace and contentment that we feel all around us now."

Ben hadn't argued with his uncle at the time, but even as he watched from this strange state of being he knew that he had never felt such a feeling as Luke described. No, Ben Solo had been born feeling a pervading sense of gloom, what his uncle described as a blanket of darkness. He hadn't argued, but looking back now he realized he should have. He should have spoken up and told Luke that he felt the darkness coming from everything. That he had a dark voice constantly in his head feeding him doubt and suspicion.

Regret tore through his entire being and the scene shredded before his eyes, leaving him blinking back tears.

In the darkness of his moonlit hut, Luke was standing over his sleeping form, the Jedi Master's one remaining human hand outstretched, his eyes closed in concentration. Because he had lived this moment he knew that the young man on the uncomfortable cot, who looked so serene in slumber, was actually having a horrific nightmare in which his parents, his uncles, everyone he cared about were trapped in a burning temple made of glass. He dreamed he was on the outside, unable to move or talk, his hand stretched toward them, frozen, helpless to do anything to save them. He'd wanted to scream, to extinguish the fire, to save his loved ones, but he couldn't, all he could do was watch as they writhed in agony while flames licked at their flesh and set their hair and fur aflame.

In the still silence of the hut Ben's eyes snapped to Luke, he saw the exact moment Luke's hand darted to the lightsaber at his side. He watched as Luke's green blade erupted from the silvery handle. He heard the loud humming hiss as Luke's arm jerked toward the ceiling. and he watched as the madness melted quickly off of his uncle's features. He saw Luke lower the lightsaber and stare at it in shock and horror. He saw his own eyes pop open and watched as his younger self turned to take in the scene of Luke Skywalker, Jedi Master, standing over him with his blade ignited, a look of shock and horror plainly written on his face, both emotions emanating from him like wind from a hurricane. He saw as the other him reacted instinctively, grabbing his own blade and pulling the roof down upon them all.

Ben ducked as the stone hut crumbled around him only to realize he was standing in a lush forest, at mid day. He glanced around and his eyes fell on the image of Snoke. The tall humanoid looked disgustedly down at the crown of Ben's dark head as his voice incongruously crooned in a gentle, understanding manner, "You see now that you were right to be suspicious of your family's potential to betray you."

Snoke's long fingered hand caressed the nape of the younger Ben's neck sending chills through the older Ben's spine even while a fiery jolt of pure hatred shot through his heart. If he had known then what he knew now he'd have used that lightsaber hanging from a hook on his belt to cut Snoke down then and there.

"I do, Master Snoke." Younger Ben said in a voice made rough by tears.

"Don't" Older Ben said, stepping toward his younger self and the alien that would be the source of his torment for the next six years.

Intent on pulling himself away from Snoke's malevolent grasp, Ben reached out and grabbed the back of his younger self's tunic.

A jolt like lightning shot through him and he was thrown backwards, landing in a heap of broken bones and agony. Lightning split the darkness, flashing far above as he stared up from the depths of a black abyss. Far above he saw the sky turn into a lightning field as the entire cliff face above him was illuminated by thousands of strings of lightening that shot into the sky from near the rim of the pit. He'd managed to arrest his fall, for the most part, but he had sustained a lot of damage from his impact with the top of the cliff he now found himself contemplating. He was pretty sure most of his ribs were shattered and his hip and femur dislocated if not outright broken - it was hard to tell with so much pain all over his body. He had barely managed to drag himself to his hands and one good knee when the lighting changed around him and he knew that the lightening had found a new target now.

Panic spurred him on as he limped to where he spotted a good set of narrow ledges that started not far above his head and ended just shy of the top of the pit. With Herculean effort he managed not to scream at the pain in his back and ribs as he pulled himself up to the lowest of the ledges where he momentarily collapsed onto his back and gulped in several shallow breaths. With a groan he pulled himself up using the cliff wall and reached for his next step towards the top of this cliff.

Though his body protested, Ben forced himself on, using every ounce of the Force he could muster he did his best to heal some of the most painful spots even as he climbed toward what he was pretty sure would be his death.

The thought of what was happening above kept him moving when all he wanted to do was give up and accept his fate. But he couldn't do that. Not with Palpatine alive and well. Not while Rey was facing him alone.

As if that thought had caused it, the light suddenly went out, plunging the pit into darkness, and Ben could feel as Rey's presence faded rapidly until it disappeared completely. Screaming her name, he turned all of his focus to getting to the top as quickly as he could, not even taking the time to breathe and recover before plunging ever upward ledge by ledge until he finally reached the top.

The sight that greeted his eyes was as horrific as it was expected. Rey lay not far away, crumpled in the dirt, unmoving.

Not allowing himself even a moment of reprieve, Ben stumbled and crawled, and dragged himself over to where she lay with her eye staring vacantly at nothingness.

Awkwardly, he pulled her into his lap.

Her eyes stayed fixed and unfocused, her chest didn't stir, and he could not feel her in the Force at all. panic suffused his body and he glanced around, hoping beyond hope to spy someone nearby who could help.

But nobody was there, even if there had been, nobody could bring Rey back. She was beyond help now. It would be impossible to bring her back.

Hugging her to him he rocked gently as his mind refused to grasp the concept of having to live without her. From somewhere in the darkness of his despair he heard his mother's voice whisper in the back of his mind, "Nothing's impossible."

It occurred to him then that thought he hadn't been dead, he'd been pretty close to it when Rey had healed him on the ruins of the Death Star. He wasn't quite sure how she'd managed to heal the wound she'd inflicted when she'd impaled him with his own saber, but he knew he had to try.

Blinking back the tears he pulled her away from his chest and settled her across his lap. Placing one hand on her torso he closed his eyes and for the first time in six long years he consciously tapped into the light side of the Force, begging it to allow him to heal her as she had healed him.

With his whole being he willed her to live. to breathe, to wake up and be alright. An eternity seemed to pass before suddenly her chest expanded and the cool touch of her hand landing on the back of his jerked his eyes wide with wonderment.

Recovering as quickly as if she were waking up from a dream, Rey scrambled into an upright position, never taking her eyes from his.

Joy surged through him even as a strange lethargy pulled at his limbs.

"Ben." she whispered as a brilliant smile lit up her face.

In his whole life he'd never seen anything as precious and beautiful as her smile. Part of him wanted to weep for joy, but most of him was just too busy savoring the feel of her feelings washing over him while his own overwhelmed even the pull of the soul deep weariness that grasped at him with clawing hands.

Her smile slowly turned to a searching gaze that danced around his face, landing on his mouth and he felt her hesitation give way to a giddy sense of daring as her face shot toward his, intent on kissing him. He met her half way, his arms coming up to pull her close, wanting nothing more than to somehow melt into her being like an ice cube into a glass of water.

It quickly became evident to both of them that neither had ever kissed anyone before and Ben felt a tinge of embarrassment mixed into the jumble of emotions that swirled though him. Shock, disbelief, relief, and joy had him so overcome that for a moment all he could do was stare at her as Rey slowly backed away with a shy smile on her lips and such a hopeful expression in her eyes that his heart seemed to falter for a moment before it stuttered back to life and a grin spread across his face. He couldn't even want to suppress the happiness that glowed out through his smile and reflected back at him in hers. A soft chuffle of delight escaped his lips before his heart stuttered again.

The smile faded from his features as pain shot through his chest and his heart stopped beating. Afraid that he may never see her again his eyes locked onto her face before the world went black.

With a gasp, Ben woke up in a darkened room. The sound of quiet weeping drew his gaze to a figure curled into itself in a tight ball on it's side.

He could have felt who it was from a hundred light years off, so it was no difficult feat, in spite of the darkness of the room, to identify the tiny figure.

Rey.

She was weeping, alone in the dark, in a tiny room with only a cot and box of belongings. He could feel her grief so strongly that he had no choice but to close the distance and take her into his arms - but when he reached for her, his hands passed through her like smoke.

"Rey." He said gently.

As if she heard his voice, Rey whispered his name back to him.

"Don't cry, sweetheart." he said coaxingly, trying once again to touch her, this time to stroke her hair, but failing to be able to do so.

"I miss you so much," She whispered into the darkness.

"I'm here, Rey. I'm right here."

"I'm so sorry, I failed you." she sobbed.

"You never failed me!" he said urgently. "You could never fail me!"

"I'm so sorry." she repeated several times then went back to sobbing quietly, her whole body shaking with the force of her grief.

Ben didn't know what to do. He wasn't sure if she heard him or not, if she felt him or not, but he couldn't leave her - not when she finally fell into a fitful sleep, not when she woke the next day and took her box of meager belongings aboard the Millennium Falcon, not even when she'd flown to Exogul and muttered to herself for hours while she searched the ruined Sith temple amid the rotting corpses of thousands of Palpatine's adherents who had perished with her in the wake of Palpatine's ultimate defeat.

That was what it had been like the first time he had woken up to find himself witnessing many of the worst experiences of his life before reliving his own death and then being thrust into the mortal realm for as long as he could manage before his energy drained so far he would feel as though he was dying again only to wake up back into the nightmare of his own past.

It was a vicious and cruel cycle that plagued his very existence. And yet, it was a cycle he knew he could stop at any time by just not climbing that cliff. He didn't have to, but time after time he dragged himself up from the abyss just to be able to see her smile at him, to feel her kiss him - to spend one more day with her in the mortal realm even though he was unable to interact with anything in it.

When he was with her, he didn't feel alone, he didn't feel isolated or lonely. He felt whole and almost peaceful just from being near her. Whatever the cost he paid so frequently, he knew it was worth it for every moment he got to spend just watching her live the life he had given back to her the last time she had ever seen him.

The love he felt for her grew every day as he watched her struggle to balance the needs of the galaxy against her own need to seek out a way to bring him back to life. At first he'd been thrilled and so proud of her determination, but as the years wore on, he'd come to appreciate the reality of the heavy toll the quest was taking upon her. He never saw her smile anymore. Not even the fake smiles she used to give her friends when they'd express concern for her well-being. Every time he came back to her he noticed that she had faded just a tiny bit more, it pained his essence to realize that she was slowly becoming a mere shadow of the bright light she had once been in the Force.

Recently he found himself hoping that she would just give up on him and contemplating the thought of not climbing the cliff. Would it change things if he didn't make the climb? Would she still be alive? Or would she be dead, too? He didn't know - and that's what kept him climbing even though he genuinely wanted her to stop driving herself ragged in an attempt to find a way to bring him back.


	4. Chapter 4

"Poe?" Rose asked quietly, trying not to bring much attention to herself. "Can I have a word with you, please?"

Poe looked a little puzzled, in all the years he had known Rose Tico she had never once asked him for a private word in such a sneaky, quiet manner. "Sure, Rose..." He said hesitantly. "Can you give me like, 5 minutes?"

"Yeah." She said then went to wait in the hall outside the crowded command center.

In true Poe fashion he showed up fifteen minutes later, full of apologies.

"It's fine." Rose cut him off mid-excuse."Listen, we need to talk about some pretty heavy stuff, can we go to your office?"

Quickly agreeing, Poe led Rose to his office where he locked the door behind them as he gestured for her to take a seat.

Rose declined the proffered chair, choosing to pace instead.

"Look, I know there's a lot going on right now with Lando, and Bressacca and Rey and Finn and the Hutts and the Devronians and a million other things..." She began, growing more agitated as she went. "but I need to leave for a while."

Poe frowned, "What is it? What's wrong?"

Looking rather sad Rose responded a little too crisply, "Nothing! I just need to get out of here for a while."

Poe stared at her hard for a moment then shook his head, "I don't buy that. Something's wrong. What is it?"

Shaking her head stubbornly, Rose insisted, "Nothing is wrong. Everything is exactly how it should be. You have this huge important job, Finn has his Jedi studies and Jannah, Rey has her quest for Ben... I just need to... I need to find my belonging too. You know? I need to find my place in the galaxy."

Taking a step towards her, Poe leaned down to look her in the eyes as his hand landed gently on her shoulder. "I understand how you feel." He said simply. "Rose, you're a brilliant engineer, the best we have in fact, but no job - no cause - can fill the emptiness in a person's life once loneliness has taken hold and become a habit."

Rose looked at Poe, really looked at him for a change, and for the first time she noticed the grey streaking his jet black hair, the tired tilt to his jaw, and the soul deep weariness in his eyes. "I think, maybe, you do understand." She said softly. "You really care about her don't you?"

In an instant Poe's guard came up and he straightened, pulling away from her. "I care about everyone in the Resistance." He said elusively.

Not to be deterred, Rose pushed, "You love her."

Poe scowled at her for a moment before answering. "I did. A long time ago."

"You still do. You just won't admit it because she doesn't love you back." Rose said confidently before reaching out a hand to place on his shoulder and confide, "I know how that feels."

Poe looked at her, his guard dropping once again to show the pain he kept so carefully hidden around everyone. "I guess you do." He said finally after an intensely silent moment.

"Wanna have a drink on it? We haven't done that in a while." She suggested.

"What, just me and you?" He asked, a little hesitantly.

"Why not? It's not like drowning our sorrows would work if Finn or Zorii were there this time..." She said with a shrug.

"You have a point." He said with a tired smile. "My place at say... 8?"

"Alright, should I bring anything?"

"You kidding? I have enough booze to put half the Resistance into a three day coma." He grinned ruefully then made a quick escape, calling over his shoulder, "If you're one minute late I'm starting without you!"

A blinking red light on the dash alerted Lando and Rey to an incoming transmission. Lando looked at Rey and grinned, "I'll do the talking." He said then switched the flip to open the comms channel. "This is General Lando Calrissian of the Resistance, I have come to negotiate with the High Exalted One, Bressacca, High Queen of this sector."

"Her Highness bids you no welcome, Resistance scum. You will turn your ship around and leave before she decides to blow it and you out of this galaxy." A hostile voice replied.

Lando winked at Rey, "I could leave without finalizing the negotiations for Her Majesty's new fleet, but then there won't be any ships coming to these parts except the ones that'll be coming to take this sector from Her Majesty and place the High Queen under arrest."

"We'd like to see you try that, rebel slime!" The voice shot back, unperturbed.

"You probably would, but I doubt her highness would enjoy losing the 100 ships we're prepared to give her." Lando said genially.

Several long moments passed in silence before a different voice came over the comms, directing them to a landing pad in the heart of the capital city of Uronis Prime - Carsinium.

Lando and Rey exchanged a glance as Lando switched off the comms. "Now comes the fun part." He grinned. "Just hang back and let the master show you how it's done."

Rey rolled her eyes but held her silence. She was quite used to Lando's overbearing charm by now, but it still sometimes annoyed her. She liked the man well enough, but he was just so... outgoing and... he seemed to be lacking in all genuine forms of honestly, including emotional honesty. Not like the people she preferred to spend her time with. Not like Finn, or Rose, or even Poe for the most part... and certainly nowhere close to the often brutal honesty of... No, she stopped herself. She couldn't afford to think about him right now. The situation was too precarious to give in to distractions - especially distractions as large as... him.

Upon landing Rey and Lando were escorted at blaster-point through a maze of alleyways and across a few wide boulevards to the Chancellor's mansion where Bressacca had taken up residence after quite unceremoniously disposing of the Chancellor.

Bressacca took her sweet time summoning them to her throne room and Rey was frustrated to the point that she almost wished someone would open fire so she'd have an excuse to kill a few of the surly guards that had been making rude comments and gestures in her and Lando's direction since they had landed.

"High Exalted one!" Lando greeted in a booming voice that echoed from the walls and ceiling of the cavernous chamber. "I am Lando Calrissian, of the Resistance forces, formerly of the Rebel Alliance, Hero of the battle of Endor, and Ruler of all Bespin." He said formally then bowed extravagantly. "And my dear companion is General Rey Skywalker, Master of the Jedi arts, Hero of the Battle of Exogul, Slayer of Emperor Palpatine and Founder of the new Jedi Order."

Uncomfortable with being thrust into the spotlight so boastfully Rey gave an awkward wave then shot Lando a glare.

Bressacca stared down her long, scaly nose at them for a moment then said in a serpentine voice, "Very well, What have you come to speak to Queen Bressacca about, Lando of the Resistance?"

"If I may?" He said obsequiously and stepped forward. "We would like to negotiate for the return of this system to the mantle of the Resistance's protection."

Bressacca drew back with a hiss. "You've come to try to talk me into giving up my claim on this system?"

"Not at all!" Lando said, stepping a little closer. "We've come to broker an alliance." He smiled his most winning smile. "In times such as these, one can never have too many allies."

"I need not for allies, Lando of the Resistance." Bressacca said, eyeing him with hostility. "Especially allies who would try to sway me with sweet perfume and loud clothing."

Lando's grin faltered. He hadn't expected to be rebuffed for his flamboyant outfit and the extra care he had taken in selecting a fragrance the Queen would find pleasing.

Stepping forward, Rey waved her hand, saying very calmly, "You want us for allies."

Bressacca looked at her closely then her scaly lips peeled back to reveal wickedly sharp looking teeth, "I want you for allies?"

"You want to negotiate in private with Lando and I." Rey said in the same tone with another wave of her hand.

"I have no reason to negotiate with either of you." Bressacca said, her long tongue shooting out to flick against her eyeball. "And now that you've both proven your untrustworthy nature, you are both under arrest."


	5. Chapter 5

"And then he told me he appreciated the way I felt about him, but that he just didn't feel the same." Rose said, teetering slightly on the settee across from Poe. "Then, you know what he did?" She said brusquely. "He kissed me on the forehead like I'm some kind of child."

Poe nodded sympathetically. "Yeah, well, at least he had a legitimate reason for closing you out - he wasn't in to you. Zorii is into me. Always has been but still - she wont give me the time of day!" Poe slurred, slipping a little of his drink onto the table where a deck of Sabbac cards lay messily forgotten. "We were great together! But will she give us a second chance? Noooo." He whinged. "I'm probably the only guy in the galaxy that ever lost a good woman by going from a spice runner to a hero!"

"You were a spice runner?" Rose said then hiccupped.

Poe scowled at her and she broke into a hiccupy giggle. "I bet your folks loved that!"

Grudgingly Poe admitted, "It was a phase, alright?"

This only made Rose laugh harder.

"Look, you try growing up as the kid of two goody goody rebellion heroes!" He said sourly. "I needed to spread my wings, try something new and exciting."

Sobering a little, but still grinning, Rose replied, "Yeah, but spice running? Isn't that a little beneath your dignity Mr. Poe Dameron - notoriously dashing and dignified hero?"

Poe wanted to scowl but seeing Rose trying to imitate a man's voice while gesturing as if she could ever pull off being masculine brought a little bit of a smile to his face.

"Well, isn't being a civil engineer a little beneath your dignity miss Rose Tico - Hero of the battles of Crait and Exogul?" He shot back then added, "We all do what we do now - good, bad, or neither - because of what we used to do and how those things have shaped our lives."

Looking a little taken aback, Rose gave him a sharp look then rolled her eyes, "Don't be getting all philosophical on me now, Dameron. You'll ruin the tidy little image of you that I keep in my mind."

Poe looked genuinely surprised, "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Huh?" She said then quickly filled her mouth with a big gulp from her glass.

"Are you saying you think I'm too dumb for philosophy?" He asked, slightly miffed.

Swallowing so fast she almost started choking, Rose replied, "No! Of course not! You're not dumb! You just…" stopping abruptly she blushed and looked into her cup as she shrugged.

"I'm just…. What?" He demanded.

"You're just… Poe." She said as if that was explanation enough.

"I'm Poe?" He arched a brow at her. "What does that mean? That I'm just some stick brain with no thoughts about anything but flying and fighting?"

Blowing out a defeated breath Rose set her cup down. "Look, just forget I said anything, OK? You can be as philosophical as you want to be. I mean, it's not like being deeper than I thought you were is a bad thing!"

Poe gaped at her for a second then snapped his mouth shut.

"Just how shallow do you think I am?" He asked after a long, uncomfortable silence.

"I don't think you're shallow I just… I didn't know you were… philosophical." She finished lamely after casting around for a better word but failing to find one.

"You've known me for six years…" Poe said with a resigned sigh. "I've spent more time with you than probably any woman besides my mother… and all this time... you've been thinking that I'm some kind of... thoughtless, shallow…" he broke off, shaking his head. "No wonder Zorii wont give me the time of day, if that's the kind of impression I give off."

"I don't even get your obsession with her." Rose said almost sharply. "What is it that makes you so crazy about Zorii Bliss?" She rolled her eyes over the name then continued, "She's pretty and all, when you can see her, but… I mean… what else is there? She isn't kind. She isn't particularly smart. She's rude… what do you see in her?"

Poe frowned deeply. "She's more than pretty, she's beautiful. She's not unkind or dumb in any way she's just not that easy to get to know - because she doesn't trust anybody."

"Well, I don't trust anybody either but that doesn't make me unapproachable."

Poe looked at her like she'd just grown another head. "You trust everybody." He said accusingly. "You even trusted a drunk slicer to save us from the First Order."

"Lesson learned." She said grimly.

"That lesson in mistrust covered all three of us in the blood of over 300 of our own people." He muttered then emptied his glass.

"What do you want from me? An apology? I've done that. I wasn't the only one who trusted him, you know?" Said, clunking her cup down on the table. "And it's not like we had a choice anyway."

"Rose!" Poe called as she stomped her way to the door. "I'm sorry, please come back!"

"No!" She said jabbing the button to open the door. "You think you're such a hot shot, but do you know what you really are? Do you want to know why Zorii is done with you? I'll tell you why! It's because she's a grown woman and you're still a teen aged boy that refuses grow up!"

With one last brief glare she turned on her heel and swept out of Poe's quarters with her eyes and guts both aflame.

"Now you wait just a minute!" Poe said, catching her upper arm and spinning her around to face him. "You have some nerve to come at me for acting like a kid when you've been skulking around for years, beating yourself up just because he didn't fall in love with you on the first day you met! How childish is THAT? Huh? When's the last time you weren't walking on eggshells acting like a kicked vulptice whenever he's around?"

"Probably back before you started growling and snarling at everybody every time you get rejected by Zorii!" She shot back.

Letting out a sound that part groan part growl and part snarl Poe started to walk away then turned back, pointed his finger into her face, growled then stomped off, back to his quarters.

Alone in her cell, somewhere in the bowels of Bressaca's fortress, Rey sat in silent meditation. For three solid days she'd been reaching out to Finn through the Force but so far had received no indication that he was aware of her situation. Discouraged and nearing the end of her patience she gritted her teeth and reached harder and farther than ever before. She could feel him somewhere off in the distance, vague and incoporeal - like a shadow.

Forcing herself to relax her jaw, she took a deep breath in through her nose and slowly released it through her mouth.

A strange flicker in her perception drew her notice. She knew that oddly electric tingle, it had always preceded a visit from her dyad-mate. A frown creased her forehead.

"Ben…" She whispered into the deafening silence.

The sound of her own name slipped through her mind like an echo of a sigh.

An energy not unlike joy washed through her. "Ben, I can feel you." she smiled softly into the darkened cell. "I can feel you."

A warm sensation brushed her cheek, wiping away an errant tear that had squeezed it's way between her sealed eyelids.

"Ben… I don't know if it's even possible, but I need your help."

Ben sat cross legged on the floor in front of Rey, his hands resting loosely on his knees, his eyes tightly closed, his face relaxed, a ghost of a smile pulling at his lips, in a mirror image of his other half. He could hardly believe that she had indeed heard him this time, but he knew she had.

"Anything." he whispered.

"I can't get out of here on my own, I need you to find Finn."

The tiny smile faded from his lips. "Rey…" he hesitated. "I've been trying to make you hear me for years…"

"I could feel you, Ben." her sadness radiated throughout the Force surrounding them. "I couldn't hear you, but I could feel you... make him feel you. Make him feel you and maybe he'll understand."

"I don't want to leave you."

"You've never left me. Even when you're not here, you're still with me."

His eyes slid slowly open to drink in her tranquil expression. "Rey, l…"

"I know." she smiled. "I will find a way to bring you back, I promise."


	6. Chapter 6

Due to circumstances completely within my control I will not be adding any further chapters to this fiction for a very very long time.

HOWEVER...

That's because I have decided to put my other talents to good use and instead of making you a story to read, im going to make this into a story you can WATCH.

With the help of volunteer voice actors from within the fandom(want to be one? DM me) combined with the talents of some truly gifted artists I will be turning this story into a movie.

Once the movie is released this written story will also be fully released, RIGHT HERE, as it's accompanying novelization!

If you would like to be involved in helping me bring this story to life please DM me Raynebow_Rayne on Twitter!

Let's make fanfiction in a WHOLE NEW WAY together!


End file.
